


A Day Into Eternity

by Celen



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Episode: s05e13 The Diamond of the Day, Fix-It, Gen, M/M, Not Quite Gen, Post-Canon, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-22 18:57:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/613146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celen/pseuds/Celen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Avalon, Arthur watches and waits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Day Into Eternity

**Author's Note:**

> Wanted to write something post-s05e13, but because there are so many amazing reincarnation stories already... you get this instead.

**A day into eternity**

Avalon, Arthur thought, was most certainly not what the legends made it to be. After decades, there really wasn’t much to do. There never had been, not really. He spent his days in solitude, sitting on the shore of the lake, staring at it, as though his sheer willpower and obstinacy would somehow make the waters open and let him pass.

“Arthur.” 

There was a time when the voice would have made him smile in challenge, and a time after that when hearing it brought him nothing but pain. Now, he only sighed.

“Morgana.” His response took a stab at long-suffering but it was a poor effort; instead, he ended up sounding only resigned. Without looking, he could feel his sister sitting down next to him.

“How long are you going to continue like this?” There was something like concern in Morgana’s voice, but he wrote it off as a figment of his imagination. Even if they had reconciled (decades of being stuck in the same place together did that to you, eventually, and not even Morgana was able to bear a grudge towards him forever, not after he told her he never hated her because of her magic, never really could bring himself to hate her at all – oh, he did hate what she did, hated what she had become, but never _her_ ), things had never really returned to normal between them. They were on speaking terms, and on good days, Arthur could admit it to himself that he was glad his sister was here; but that was neither here nor there. There they were, both of them, stuck in the shores of this place, waiting for a day that just wouldn’t arrive.

Stuck watching.

“Until they let me through,” he hisses through his teeth. He isn’t going to stop, isn’t going to give up. He may no longer be a king, not here, but he _is_ the Once and Future king, and a king never gives up.

In the depths of the water, something flickers, and Arthur fixes his eyes at it. A figure shimmers into view, an image of a man, sitting alone in a small house, piles of books and parchments scattered around him. By now, Arthur knows they’re old texts, prophesies of the Old Religion, written in languages he never knew existed. The man, obviously exhausted, slumps into himself, his head in his hands, murmuring something—Arthur doesn’t need to hear to know what he’s saying. He can feel it, can feel himself be called, again and again and again; it’s his frustration at not being able to answer that causes him to grab one of the stones the waves have brought on the shore and throw it, with all the force he can muster, at the lake.

The image ripples and disappears, and Arthur curses.

Morgana simply watches him.

“He’ll wait for you, you know. He’s always been an idiot like that.” There’s only the slightest indication of scorn in Morgana’s voice; she never was able to quite forgive him, in the end. Not yet.

Arthur doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t need to say anything, because of course Morgana is right – Merlin was always an idiot, in this one way if in no other.

“I know.” When he finally returns, when the waters will finally let him through... he knows Merlin will be there, waiting for him, welcoming him back. He knows Merlin will be by his side, just as he should be.

If Morgana notices the small, fond smile on his lips, she says nothing.


End file.
